


The Last Word

by infiniteeight



Series: The Last Word [1]
Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, HUGE SPOILERS, M/M, SPOILERS FOR FALLOUT, yes the spoilers and the fix it are related, you didn't think I'd leave it like that did you?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteeight/pseuds/infiniteeight
Summary: Immediately after Fallout, the team heads home. Ethan has some news for Brandt. Brandt has some news of his own.(Sorry the summary is so vague but I'm trying to keep spoilers out of it.)





	The Last Word

When the laughter -- as much from relief as from the absurdity of just how close “the usual” always was -- Ilsa let out a slow breath and looked around at the rest of them. “I didn’t have a chance to ask, earlier,” she said, “but where’s Agent Brandt? This sort of mission I’d have expected all hands on deck.”

“Will’s Director of Operations for the IMF now,” Benji answered. “He decided to get out of the field after--” Benji broke off, blanching. He looked at Ethan.

Ethan closed his eyes, his heart sinking. Christ. Everything had been moving so quickly, there had been so much to keep track of, he’d…not exactly forgotten. There had just been too much else to think about. 

“Shit,” Luther said softly.

When Ethan opened his eyes again, Ilsa looked understandably confused. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “After what?”

“After he got married,” Ethan said quietly. Ilsa waited, since there was clearly more to it than that. “Brandt married Secretary Hunley.” For a moment Ethan saw it all over again, heard the pained, breathless _“Go!”_ that had been Hunley’s last word all over again.

Ilsa’s face fell, too. “Oh, no.”

“How are we going to tell Will?” Benji asked, looking from one of them to the next. “They didn’t even make it to their first anniversary.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have to tell him,” Ethan said. “If he doesn’t know already, he’ll know the second he sees us.”

The CIA-facilitated trip back to the US was somber. As relieved as they were by their success, as much as they were glad that things had been cleared up for Ilsa, who’d left for her own home, the Secretary’s loss and Brandt’s grief hung over all three of them. But when Ethan, Benji, and Luther descended from the plane and found Brandt waiting for them he was relaxed, hands in his pockets, smiling slightly.

The smile didn’t falter as they approached him, no matter what their faces must have been showing. “Ethan,” he said, nodding to all of them in greeting when they were close enough. “You really need to call in more frequently. I could have spared you some angst.”

“Will…” Ethan began.

Brandt cut him off. “Alan is fine.”

Ethan blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Well, not fine,” Will corrected himself. “He’s in the hospital, recovering from a nasty stab wound, emergency surgery, and blood loss, but he’s alive.”

“I was there when he died,” Ethan said. Could someone be using this opportunity to infiltrate the IMF? Playing on Brandt’s investment to--

“And I was on comms with him,” Brandt countered calmly. He looked around at Ethan, Luther, and Benji and let out an exasperated huff of laughter. “The kind of technology the IMF has and you really thought I’d let the Secretary, my _husband_ , go into the field with nothing but a cellphone and a handgun? I learned my lesson, thank you very much. Alan has so much implanted hardware it’s a miracle he doesn’t set off metal detectors. His comm is subcutaneous. It doesn’t have a lot of range, but enough to reach the emergency team he brought with him to London; they bounced it back to me. When he was stabbed the changes in his vital signs triggered another implant. This one released a drug that slowed his metabolism to almost undetectable levels, making it more likely that he’d be left for dead and slowing the rate of blood loss.” Brandt’s lips thinned, momentarily grim. “It’s dangerous as hell and it doesn’t buy much time, but like I said, the emergency team wasn’t far away. They went in as soon as the rest of you cleared out.”

That all sounded… exactly like something the IMF would do, actually. Hunley’s last word took on a new meaning--not just “Go get him”, but “Go so that my back up can come get me”. Ethan started to relax. “He’s really going to make it?”

Brandt’s smile came back. “He’s going to be fine, Ethan.” The smile broadened a little. “ _Now_ will you stop giving me shit about hooking up with the man who spent six months chasing you down?”

Ethan laughed and clapped Brandt on the shoulder. “Never.”

End


End file.
